By Ajit Krishna Dasa

We’re told by Ramesvara Dasa that Srila Prabhupada personally approved a list of edits to his Bhagavad-gita As It Is. I have no problem accepting that. I even believe Ramesvara Dasa when he says he saw it. It would be wonderful to have the list!

But here’s the reality: the list seems to have vanished. No one has it. No one can show it. And without the list in hand, no one can prove what was on it, what was approved, or what wasn’t.

Even if several devotees from BBT or ISKCON saw it 40 or 50 years ago, memory is not a reliable basis for editing the books of an acharya. No one alive today can recall every detail with perfect accuracy after so many years. And even if they could, we would still be left with no way to verify it.

Let’s grant the strongest possible version of the argument and say the list absolutely existed and listed real, Prabhupada-approved changes. Then what? Without the list in our hands today, we cannot distinguish between:

– The changes Srila Prabhupada personally approved,
– The changes made later by editors after his departure, and
– The mistakes he deliberately left in.

That distinction is essential. Because if we start “fixing” or “restoring” the text without knowing which changes were authorized, we immediately run into a crisis: removing even one change could erase something Srila Prabhupada wanted kept. Leaving in even one change could preserve an unauthorized edit made after his departure. We can’t know who we’re obeying, and who we’re overriding.

So even if the list was seen by some devotees long ago, the fact that it cannot be produced today means that it cannot serve as a valid basis for altering Srila Prabhupada’s books. At this point, anyone making changes is operating on guesswork. And guesswork with the words of a pure devotee is not service. It is tampering.

Until the list is actually produced — not merely remembered or rumored — the only safe and faithful policy is:

-No posthumous edits.
-No guessing.
-No tampering with what we cannot verify.

Otherwise, we’re effectively trusting editors (Jayadvaita Swami and Dravida Dasa) more than Srila Prabhupada himself. That is not loyalty. That is deviation.

Until the list is in our hands, there is no debate. Either we preserve Srila Prabhupada’s books as he left them, or we risk rewriting him based on somebody’s memory from 1977. The choice should be obvious.